Kansas City’s rookie running back spoke to the Kansas City media on Sunday ahead of the team’s rookie practice.
When the Kansas City Chiefs finally addressed the running back position in last month’s NFL Draft, the selection was an interesting one.
The team traded two of the final picks in the seventh round to move up to the 228th overall selection to take SMU’s Brashard Smith. Smith spent three years as a middling wide receiver at Miami before transitioning to running back after transferring to SMU.
The move paid dividends, as he broke out for 1,332 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns with his receiving skills adding 39 catches for 327 yards and four more scores.
On Sunday before the second session of Kansas City’s rookie minicamp, Smith clarified that he had played running back in high school and was used to a hybrid role.
“Going into college,” he recalled, “I got recruited for a receiver — a slot receiver — but as I was like going into college and being in different systems and being in different offenses, I was moving around a lot. So, I played running back and slot receiver a lot.”
Like most rookies seeing their first exposure to head coach Andy Reid’s offense, Smith acknowledges the difficulty of his new playbook.
“There’s a lot you have to learn as far as playbook, he said. “Getting everything down as far as the playbook, then I feel like it’ll come natural.”
A benefit to so many players entering the league having transferred between major college programs is prior experience learning new systems. Smith feels more prepared after having already undergone a recent move from Miami to SMU.
“Being in different systems [and] just learning different offenses,” he remarked, “that helped me out for sure.”
.@BrashardS is route running already ♂️ pic.twitter.com/cK96MMP91c
— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) May 4, 2025
Smith fully expects to contribute on offense as a rookie — and boldly holds that there may not be an NFL running back like him.
“I feel like just as the position I play,” he explained, “there’s not like a lot of running backs that like have receiver skills and running back skills, so I feel like just coming in I could contribute for sure with my skill set.”
When Reid spoke about his new running back, the coach also had difficulty making a comparison.
“I probably haven’t seen enough of him there to know,” Reid stated. “He looks like some of the some of the backs have that low center of gravity that can kind of move and lower or they can drop their weight a little bit. It looks like he has that — now, nobody’s hit him either, so it’s a little different story there — but it looks like he has good hands.”
Recency bias has many Chiefs fans (favorably) comparing Smith to recent Chiefs running back Jerick McKinnon. McKinnon’s versatility in the passing game has been sorely missing from the offense since missing much of the 2023 season with an injury and did not return to Kansas City last season.
Even with the receiving chops, Reid doesn’t necessarily see McKinnon in Smith.
“A little different run style,” Reid observed. “Jerick was a little more upright, I’m not sure who I’d compare it to, but I know he looks like he has talent, and he can catch a football.”
For his part, Smith has no doubt who he wants to be in the league.
“I kind of feel like I’m like my own self,” the rookie declared, “and I feel like I’m going to show who I am, for sure.”